Geologists and earthquake engineering experts from the US urged the government yesterday to take immediate action over what they termed as "landslide dams" (
A post-earthquake investigation team from the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research (MCEER) in the US proposed solutions to the National Center for Research on Earthquake Engineering (NCREE) yesterday, based on their observations in disaster areas in central Taiwan.
The 12-strong team, whose members' fields of expertise range from earthquake engineering to economics, pointed out problems they had observed over the past three days in the disaster-stricken areas of central Taiwan.
PHOTO: LU CHUN-WEI, TAIPEI TIMES
They stressed that a decision should be made regarding the newly formed landslide dams without delay.
The civil engineering experts said many landslide dams, and the lakes they had formed, such as the well-known Tsaoling Lake (
"To assess potential threats from newly formed landslide dams is essential. The accumulated water needs to be managed properly because the water in some lakes here has been rising a meter per day," said Thomas O'Rourke, a civil and environmental engineering professor from Cornell University in the US.
O'Rourke pointed out that soil on mountains near barrier lakes had been exposed because of deforestation and this made the environment and local residents more vulnerable during the typhoon season.
"In terms of engineering, it's not easy to remove a reservoir. It's also too expensive. However, for the Taiwan government, a long-term solution to landslide dam problems should be adopted as soon as possible," added O'Rourke.
O'Rourke said that local engineering experts in Taiwan had presented their own solutions to landslide dams, including channeling accumulated water to other reservoirs nearby and building spillways to transform landslide dams and the lakes they create into useful reservoirs.
He added that although such proposals had been made, decisions on what steps to take and concrete action to rectify the problems had not been taken.
"At this moment, maybe [the officials] are under too much pressure and need more support from experts in other countries," O'Rourke said.
Taiwan should have taken advantage of comprehensive research on landslide dams conducted by many research institutes in other countries, such as the US Geological Survey (USGS), he said, adding that experts there have collected data on the characteristics of hundreds of landslide dams around the world.
Taiwan government officials have been receiving offers of help from the international community since the earthquake struck two weeks ago.
According to NCREE's director, Loh Chin-hsiung (
"Japanese experts have offered their practical experience in dealing with earthquake issues such as reconstruction management, while US scientists have provided comprehensive technical studies. We need both," said Loh.
In order to come up with answers to questions raised in the wake of Taiwan's biggest earthquake in this century, NCREE has put together a task force of 200 local scientists and began field investigation work last week. The first draft of the research report will be available by the end of October, Loh said.
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